Editorials & Opinions

It seems the only way to get a religious book published by a secular press these days is to write some outrageous things about what the Bible claims to teach and how conservative Christians are evil, stupid, misguided, and just downright hateful. The most recent example is Pastor Oliver “Buzz” Thomas who has written 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job). In an article in USA Today (November 20, 2006), we’re told that it’s “an upcoming book.” I hope so, since it’s filled with so many logical, historical, biblical, and commonsense errors that it’s going to need a time consuming rewrite if his article “When religion loses its credibility” is any indication of how he argues for these “10 things.”

On Friday, February 2, 2007, ABC's "20/20" broadcast a show on the sex-cult "The Family of Love," known today simply as "The Family." Prior to its new designation, it was known as The Children of God (COG), a cult founded by David (Moses David) Berg, who used sex as an intoxicant to keep the cult together. Berg once said: "I practice what I preach! And I preach sex, boys and girls." Homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, and group sex were all legitimized by the COG cult. Berg's daughter, Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis writes in The Children of God: The Inside Story how her father justified his perverted view of sex because he first perverted Scripture.

To deal with the most violent and incorrigible inmates in our nation's prisons, the Department of Corrections has created the Security Housing Unit (S.H.U.). The SHU is an isolation program for prisoners, locking them up in small cells 23 to 24 hours a day for years at a time, under conditions that cause many to experience physical and psychiatric problems. These are the one's who just haven't been able to understand that murder, slinging dope, and preying upon the weak is unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated. When looking at their booking photo and reviewing their criminal records, it may be difficult for society to see the human side of these individuals.

Why do so many parents who seriously consider homeschooling stop short of actually trying it?

Quite a few of them worry about their children’s ability to earn a living when they grow up. When we run into resistance to homeschooling, we often hear something like this: “If he doesn’t go to a ‘real’ school, how will he learn the skills he’ll need to get a good job? To say nothing of going to college!”

A few years ago, in the middle of a 10th-grade science class I was teaching at a local public high school, a girl unexpectedly rose from her seat and demanded her classmates’ attention.
“Listen, everybody! I’ve got something to tell you. I’m pregnant — I’m gonna have a baby!”
After a round of applause, one of the students asked a question: “Who’s the baby’s father?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the 15-year-old girl. “But there’s only four or five guys it could be.”

It needs more than ever to be stressed that the best and truest educators are parents under God. The greatest school is the family … The moral training of the child, the discipline of good habits, is an inheritance from the parents to the child which surpasses all others. The family is the first and basic school of man.

Christian pollster, George Barna, reports that only 2% of all born-again American teens have a biblical worldview. This means that 98% of Christian teens lack a Christian worldview! How did we get here? Before we can answer this important question, we first need to understand a little bit about worldviews. A worldview is a set of assumptions we hold about the world and our lives in it that shapes what we think, say, and do. We get our assumptions from many places, most notably at home and in the classroom.

The newspaper and news sources in general can be depressing reading these days. No matter who wins in November, America and the world are in for uncertain times. Instead of ruminating over the negative possibilities, Christians should see all of what will be coming as opportunities. It's in uncertain times that Jesus entered the world. Israel was a captive nation with no political power. The church was birthed when Rome controlled nations from Great Britain to the coast of Africa and everything in between. The newly formed Church went about doing its job to bring the gospel to the nations. In time, Rome collapsed under its own fragile moral center, and the Church expanded, setting the moral agenda for the then-known world that is still impacting today's world.More...

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”Matthew 5:17

I believe that Jesus meant exactly what He said. I believe that absolute truth exists. I believe that ethics and morals are not relative, that right is always right, and wrong is always wrong. I believe that Jesus is the source of truth, and that His model is the example we’re meant to emulate.